Dullahan, the lord of despair and stuff
by Pureauthor
Summary: You know, think we can agree Poseidon ain't really a people person...
1. Dullahan

I have a penchant for one shots…… humour fic this time round. I feel more comfortable with those. It features everyone's favorite headless boss

Dullahan 

He stood, silent and imposing. He was Dullahan, the lord of Shadow, Death incarnate. He was the devourer of worlds, blighter of nations. He was Dullahan Soulrender, Dullahan shadow warlock. He was the harbinger of death, the knight of despair. He was invincible, unchallenged among all things that strode the world. He was…

He was bored. Dammit, how hard was it for someone to get all 72 djinni available, open the stupid sanctum, and solve the puzzles to find his way here? The most recent adventurers had been less than satisfying in terms of fulfilling his innate love for battle. Not to mention a little weird.

He still recalled the first ever person that had challenged him. The human had stood staring bewilderedly around for a few seconds before walking up to Dullahan and asking him if this was the Northern Crater. A quick Formina Sage later and the human had been sent flying into the abyss behind. Briefly, Dullahan wondered since when had the outside world decided it cool to sport spiky yellow hair and an oversized sword.

Then there was the second person. After staring disdainfully at the monstrosity in front of him, he had mouthed a single word: 

Whatever.

Well, unless you considered the scream he had emitted afterwards a word. In which case he had uttered two of them. But Dullahan wasn't one for philosophical crap. After realizing that his lair was getting pretty cluttered up with all the bones from his opponents, he had decided to dispose of them the normal way. Well, at least he assumed turning them into various household furnitures was the normal way. Currently, he had a table, various chairs for visitors, a throw rug, and several vases. Too bad that he didn't have a green thumb. If so, he might have had several flowers to put into the vases. As such, he had to settle for a few armbones.

Currently, he was settled by the stone tablet he was supposed to be guarding, reading the latest issue of "Home improvement for headless homicidal maniacs". Hmmm…. He'd need several cushions if he wanted to keep up to date. Maybe with pictures of cute puppies on them. Yes, that'd be nice. Looking up, he realized that yet another person had come to claim the powers of Iris. Looking at Dullahan, he flashed a smile, and said :" Hi, is this the way to Memoria?"

Seconds later, he returned to the magazine, the screams of the human getting enveloped in a wave of poisonous goo from Charon a comfortable background music for his reading. Then, putting down the magazine, he mused:" Did that boy have a _tail?!_"

So time passed, and Dullahan propped himself up against the tablet, gnawing away at a bone from his latest prize. He still wondered why the human had been wearing the weirdest pair of pants he had ever seen. One long and one short. Strange. Young ones these days had all sorts of weird fashions. Then, putting the bone down, he wondered how he had managed to gnaw at it without possessing a mouth. Or a head, for that matter. Shrugging, he tossed the bone aside. More important matters were at hand. It was an ancient secret, passed down to the guardians of Iris as far back as anyone could remember. Sliding open, a secret doorway, slowly, he regarded the object in front of him with a respect that bordered on obsession. So much depended on this. Then, he quickly, depressed a tiny indentation the side of the object.

"Bill, the Tribe has spoken."

Dullahan slumped his head in defeat. Drats. Bill had been his favorite. Muttering to himself, he took note to hunt down and murder every single last member of the Contigo tribe for voting Bill out. Then, he went to sleep.

A couple of weeks later, Dullahan had been adding a new layer of polish to his armor when he noticed someone else heading for him. Straightening up and brandishing his sword, he was about to launch into his monologue when he realized something vitally important.

He had forgotten what he was supposed to say.

Drats. But Dullahan was nothing if not resourceful, and thus he decided to improvise. After all, how hard could it be to create terrifying speech?

"I shall totally li3k, pwnz0r j00 n00b4zz! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Dullahan shrugged. Somehow, it just wasn't the same. No matter. After killing his latest victim, he inspected the corpse. For some strange reason, the word "Zelda" kept flashing in his head. Maybe it had something to do with the green tunic. Shrugging, he tossed the body into the pit.

Dullahan had noticed a strange trend in the warriors who came to face. Mainly, the trend was that they became weirder and weirder. Well, at least if his latest foe was any indication. It had apparently tried to dispose of Dullahan by jumping on his head. Not a very effective strategy, in his opinion. Well, the body was several pieces on the floor right now, and all that remained was a weird looking red hat. After trying it on, he decided that it didn't look too good on someone without a head and dropped it. Seriously, this was ridiculous. Was there NO ONE who could face him?

Wait a sec… someone was coming. Eight someones, in fact. Perfect. Maybe he'd have a decent challenge at last…..

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Author:You should know what happens next. And if not, shame on you. Sooo… whaddya think?


	2. Sentinel

Sentinel, his rusty armor, and stuff.

Okay, I wasn't planning on continuing this thing. But since everyone seemed to like it so much, here's part two!

Dullahan: I was supposed to be the star of this story! You will pay for this! (grabs Pureauthor and tosses him out of the window)

Carl: Now you've done it. How are we supposed to start the story without the author?

Dullahan: He'll be better off if the story was never continued!

Fizz: Indeed. His writing skills suck. We shouldn't expose the public to this torture!

Carl: (sighs) Fine. I'll do it.

Wxsswernfrv5goinlwxeokl

Carl: Jeez, it's hard to type with paws.

Author: (climbs in through the window) Ow.

Dullahan: You haven't learnt your lesson? It's the gallows for ye!

Calis Wraithson: (casts Frost Nova on Dullahan)

Author: Thanks.

Calis Wraithson: Don't bother. He was interrupting my game.

Author: Whatever. (seats himself at the computer) Let's start!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sentinel crouched low, thinking. He certainly had more than enough time to do so. Over ten thousand years as a tablet guardian and no one had bothered to show up. They were all so interested in that Dullahan chap. Oh well, at least it allowed him some measure of privacy to do the things he did. Such as now. Which was mainly ponder about his existence, and his purpose of being. Hey, GameBoy Advances were still about twelve thousand years in the future. Not to mention batteries.

He was still wondering. Being, in essence, a golem, it was not in him "forget" anything. Ever. He still remembered the day two thousand years ago he had asked that living armor out for a date. After getting clonked on the head by her axe, he had promptly armor crushed her into oblivion, and spent the better part of one month crying over various pieces of metal. Love was a strange thing. 

In any case, his perfect memory allowed him to remember the day of his creation. He had been brought to life by several people rapidly pressing several buttons on a gray tablet. After that, he had been given his task, which was, in essence, to guard the summoning stone behind him until the end of time, and slay any who was fool enough to enter. Only they hadn't quite put it that way. They explained it to him more along the lines of "sidequests" and "optional bosses". The powers-that-be worked in strange ways.

Standing, he winced as his armor squeaked and groaned in protest. It wasn't fair. Dullahan had all sorts of furniture, a freakin' TV, a lifetime subscription to "Home improvement for Headless Homicidal Maniacs", and Sentinel wasn't even provided with armor polish. He hated his life, and at time wished that he could just end it. Sadly, the fact that he was nigh-invincible reared it's ugly head time and time again. Chopping off his head was out-of-the-question. His helmet blocked all sorts of attacks, physical or whatnot. Jumping off a building to try and kill himself was marred by the fact that he had already done so twice and hadn't even been aware that he'd hit the ground yet. His armor sometimes worked TOO well. The fact that he was immune to psynergy also blocked out the ability to fry himself with Spark Plasma and Searing Beam

Then there had been the time he'd tried to drown himself. Trekking to the tallest cliff in all Osenia, he'd jumped off into the raging ocean far below him, and was lost beneath the endless waves. Two years later, he emerged dripping wet on a beach near the town of Yallam and had been forced to hitch a ride back to Islet Cave. Well, how was he to know he didn't need to breathe?  His temper wasn't helped by the fact that when he returned, he had found that SOMEONE had stolen the tablet, and had learned how to summon Bahamut. To this day, he hadn't been able to find the culprit, although there were several turtle-shaped footprints in the area.

Contacting his masters, he had informed them of his failure, and understandably, they were not pleased. After providing him with the replacement summon "Ramuh", they had warned him not to be so friggin' careless next time. And he hadn't. He had patrolled the cavern endlessly until one day, he had tripped on a pebble and had fallen headfirst onto the tablet, smashing it into dust. His superiors had once again worked their magic to create the summon "Catastrophe" and warned him that if he screwed up one more time, he would be "deleted from the beta". He had no idea what that meant, and he didn't want to find out. He had guarded the summon with his life, and it was the new tablet that was currently a couple of feet behind him.

A few days later, he was challenged in the dark of the night. He didn't get a good look at his attacker, but it seemed to have a shell of some sort. It had apparently used the summon Bahamut against him. Which hurt a lot more than anything else he had known in his life. After contacting his masters about this, they had once again explained it, this time going off on a longwinded conversation about "balance" and something about prevention of "overpoweredness". Halfway through the lecture, he decided that if he wanted to maintain some sort of semblance on his sanity, he would have to cut off the conversation. Which he did, mainly by yelling that he'd forgotten to take the turkey out for a walk. He had no idea what that meant. But it worked. 

He was still wondering about how a few days later, he'd been landed with a form that berated him for not possessing a license to own pets. Handling it in his unique way, he had remailed the message back to it's original sender, with a pissed-off Chimaera worm inside the envelope. A few weeks later, the worm had returned to the cavern, this time covered with blood splatters. At least the mails about pet licenses had stopped. Unfortunately, the mails about "1st-degree murder" and whatnot started arriving. He had practically emptied the Islet Cave of Chimaera worms to reply with, and a couple of weeks later, a last mail informing him that the "Royal Navy Marines Corps" would be paying a visit to his cave arrived. He was still wondering about all those screams outside his room, continuously punctured by growls from the Cruel Dragons, squawks from the Wonder Birds, hisses from the Gruj's, and well… nothing from the Chimaera worms. They didn't have vocal chords.

Then, before his startled eyes, eight adventurers arrived in the room. After staring at him for a few minutes, one of them, a young sandy-blonde haired individual cleared his throat and asked what exactly this place was. Sentinel, not very sure of the speech he had been assigned with, launched into his own monologue.

" I guard the powers of the wind. If you want the ability to summon Baha- er, I mean Ram- dammit, I mean Catastrophe, prove your worth!"

A young blonde boy, barely fifteen, stepped forward, and with a cry, he unleashed a blast of Spark Plasma on Sentinel, eyes widening when he saw the electrical blasts bounce harmlessly off his armor plating. With a smirk, he utilized Armor Crush on the young individual, smiling in satisfaction as the lad flew backwards to crumple against the wall like a toy.

A second later, he hissed in pain as the Sandy-haired boy unleashed a Djinni on him. Flint, most likely. He was about to reply with a sword swipe when he realized that the blow had completely separated his sword arm from his body. Whirling to the smiling boy, he hissed in anger.

" A mere flesh wound!" He proclaimed, before blasting the boy away with a concentrated Searing Beam. The sandy-haired kid groaned before slumping to the floor like the young lad. He was about to continue the attacks on the rest of the party when he noticed two females staring in the general direction of the unconscious lads. One was blonde, and just about the same age as the first lad, while the second had a shock of blue hair and a gentle complexion

"I-Ivan?"

"ISAAC-CHAN!"

Then, the two females had turned to him, and- well, he wasn't sure WHAT happened. Later, he described it as a mix of a hurricane, a tornado, and a typhoon hitting him at the same time. The only thing he knew at the moment, however, was that he had just suffered through more pain then any sentient being had any right to endure. And as his severed head stared up at the ceiling from his current vantage point on the blue-haired one's staff, he had only one thing to say:

"Owie."


	3. Valukar

Valukar, his crucible of flame, and stuff.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In the dark shadows of Yampi cave, Valukar lurked. He had existed for a thousand generations, each and every day an embodiment of torture, of hatred. He had complete control over his realm, and all who opposed him would be thwacked mightily by his mighty hammer of really-really big headaches.

He still had no idea why the producers had given him a hammer. After all, hammers were generally not too fear inspiring. He would have much preferred to have a sword or a scythe or maybe even a staff. A hammer just looked plain stupid.

And then there was the question of his specialty attack. They gave Dullahan the ability to turn half of an attacking army into crap in the space of two moves, Sentinel a super-useful invulnerability to psynergy. Heck, the Star Magician had the ability to guard himself, heal himself, attack, and self-destruct all in the same turn. And Valukar? He was left with an ability that was useful only against people who had djinni, out of the entire world's populace. (All eight of them. Woohoo.) And his "Stun Jip" sounded like some hippie who had overdosed on acid.

Just then, he heard a strange sound. The average human might have said it sounded like a bumblebee, but Valukar, having been stuck in the cavern for who knew how long, would have described it as a fish trying to suck out an eyeball from a dead scorpion. Please don't ask how he came by that description.

However, the source of the sound became clear. A trio of humans suddenly materialized in front of Valukar, looking a bit dizzy. After glancing around for a few minutes, the eldest of that group noticed Valukar.

"Huh? This doesn't seem right… oh wait, that pill was a yellow one. Here's the red one, Neo." A younger man took the pill swallowed it, and the trio once again vanished. Valukar blinked. Then he settled back to take a nap. He had enough to do without worrying about teleporting weirdoes and pills and all that junk.

Days passed into weeks, month into years, years into centuries, and still no one came in. Then Valukar stretched, scratched at his unmentionables, and muttered "Ah, that was a good nap." Grabbing his hammer, he once again stood guard at the door.

Valukar was unsure of his introductory monologue. It had been straightforward enough, but he had no idea what a crucible was. The producers had not seen fit to provide Valukar with a dictionary for looking up words he did not understand, and thus, he was left pretty much in the dark. Literally, too. The cave was all but blocked off from sunlight. Yay for him. Then Valukar remembered that Dullahan had an entire household of furniture and whatnot in his lair. Maybe he could borrow a dictionary from him! This happy thought in mind, Valukar packed up, and left Yampi desert for a vacation. Before leaving, however, he hung up a sign on the entrance that said "Away on a vacation. If you want the summon, contact Sentinel. I gave it to him for safekeeping." Then he left.

Almost immediately after he had left, a trio of people came to the desert. After glancing around, the largest said in a voice heavily accented voice "De Tee-Eks will not stop searching for us. We have to move on." Then he strode off, while residents of the desert fought off an urge to bite his ankle.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Valukar sighed as he entered the entrance if Anemos Inner Sanctum. The stupid door required all 72 djinni to be activated, something which Valukar was not going to waste a year of his life looking for for. _To heck with it,_ he decided, and smashed the door down insingle blow of his hammer. Some things had to be said for various oversized household tools after all.

Journeying through the sanctum, any obstacle that required a psynergy he did not possess generally resulted in that obstacle getting smashed into itty-bitty pieces. Finally reaching the big spider thingy in the middle, he pushed it into place, and climbed on it expectantly. Nothing happened. Oh, right. He needed hover. Something which he did not possess at this particular moment. However, this particular problem didn't lend itself into getting smashed as a solution. Only one way for it, then…

A few seconds later, a very bored Dullahan glanced up as he saw what seemed to be a humongous pink demon flapping it's wings in an effort to reach him. This, apparently, was taxing the demon enough that when it was finally was over solid ground, it collapsed in a rather ungainly heap. 

Valukar pulled himself up to his feet, and wheezed as he stared at the harbinger of death in front of him. Despite having no head, the monstrosity in front of him managed to convey a sense of amusement. Dullahan was the first to break the silence.

"Can I help you with something, Valukar?"

"Yes, you can. First, off, could you put the stupid newspaper aside so I can look at your face?!"

The reply came back, cool and unruffled as ever. "First, it's not a newspaper, it's a magazine. Two, I don't HAVE a face for you to look at."

"Whatever. Why would you need "Home Improvement for Headless Homicidal maniacs anyway?"  
  


"You'd be surprised. Anyway, what did you come here for? You're supposed to be guarding the summon tablet for Daedelus, if I recall."

"I came to borrow a dictionary."

"What? You came all the way to Contigo to borrow a dictionary?!"

"Hey, it's not like I could just waltz into any human settlement and buy one from the bookstore without causing a commotion, right?"

"Well, and waltzing into the middle of human settlement, standing on a strange rune, and suddenly disappearing in the middle of the afternoon sure beats that, huh?"

"… Shut up. I just want the dictionary."

"I lent it to Star Magician. He wanted to know why everyone starts sniggering when he talks about his balls."

Valukar groaned. The tablet guardians agreed that Star Magician was a brilliant inventor, a powerful mage, and a warrior with a unique style of fighting. They all also agreed that the Star Magician was totally and utterly crackers. Anyone who entered the same room would come out mentally scarred for life. If he ever came out at all. Sighing, he bade Dullahan farewell and left the room. He had a certain island to attend to…

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Valukar collapsed at the entrance of the Yampi cave. After one encounter with the Star Magician, he never wanted to leave the solitude of his cavern again. Ever. Not even if they tied him to horses, and used Grand Golems to push him out. Here, in his castle, he was safe. Here, in the cavern, he was his own master. Here-

A pair of tiny child-like creatures, ran past screaming at the top of their lungs. A second later, a gigantic spider, hissing angrily, ran after them. Closely followed by a regiment of orcs, all shouting various war cries. Valukar barely even noticed, and managed to make it back to his personal cavern.

After settling himself down, he glanced over at the telephone. Apparently Sentinel had called him. Replaying the message, he heard the voice of the armor-clad warrior complaining about why so many people had been coming asking for the daedelus summon, and wasn't it his job to guard that particular summon. Valukar decided to reply later. Flicking on his lamp, he opened the dictionary and looked through it until he found what he was looking for.

There was dead silence.

"A BOWL?! A crucible is a freakin' BOWL?!?"

Outside the cavern, eight travelers halted at the sound of a bellowing demon.

"What was that?"

"Only one way to find out."

Finishing his sentence, the leader of the group raised a lapis lazuli over his head, and vanished into Yampi caves.


	4. Star Magician

The Star Magician, his * snigger * balls, and stuff.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Treasure Isle. That was what the mortals called it. Long ago, pirates had come, hauling a shipload of treasure. They had sighted the island from afar, and entered it to hide their treasures. None would feel the kiss of Sol ever again.

This was not due to a rockslide, enemies, or anything spawned by nature. Oh, no. The entire cavern was stable enough that they had managed to construct an elaborate series of traps, by usage of underwater pulleys and big rocks. Really big rocks. Rather, their untimely demise was the product of an encounter with the cave's local demented guardian, namely, the Star Magician.

Historians have never documented a human or any other sentient creature of ever dying of boredom. This is mainly because the Star Magician rarely made himself known to the general public. There's something about hearing "Yes! It IS the three of hearts!" for the fifth thousand time in a row that makes you want to gouge your own eyes out. And this leads to excessive pain and bleeding, thus, death.

The Star Magician, deep within his domain of Treasure Isle, couldn't figure out why people did this. Nor did he care. He only knew several truths. First, he was the ruler of Treasure Isle, and all it's inhabitants. That wasn't too impressive when the only inhabitant that even understood the concept of a ruler was a pissed-off Jupiter djinni named Gale who had entered this place after a botched teleportation upon the collapse of the Elemental Star Chamber. Whatever. 

The second truth was that he wielded the power of all the elements, with enough strength to form physical manifestations of them. 

The third was that he was the guardian of the Summon Leviathan, a giant sea-dragon. Except the Star Magician didn't think quite so highly of the summon. He preferred to refer to it as that overgrown eel. This worked well enough until the day he had mentioned it while Leviathan happened to be listening. The dragon had promptly fired a blast of water that threw the Star Magician through a wall, and into the next room. From hereafter, the Star Magician only talked about Leviathan when the behemoth was out of earshot.

The fourth thing was that the next person to make a dumb crack about his balls would GET HIS ASS STAR MINE'D INTO NEXT WEEK SO HELP ME I'LL TURN YOU INTO PUDDING AND SMASH THOSE PIECES TO DUST AND I LIKE PIE AND STUFF. And that was about it for the extent of his knowledge.

Currently, the Star Magician was in the middle of the tablet chamber, facing down yet another foe. This was no ordinary warrior. It possessed extremely powerful psynergy, and any wrong move on his part would get him destroyed. There was only one chance. Lifting his hand, the Star Magician made a few quick gestures and-

"Checkmate."

The opposing Thunder ball would have rolled it's eyes had he been outfitted with them. Beating his master in _anything_ generally resulted in whoever beat it being blasted into itty-bitty pieces from a Star Mine. As such, it was a wise idea to just shut up and act like the psychotic wizard in front of him currently doing the chicken dance had won legitimately. Something that seemed to grow harder and harder as the days passed.

Meanwhile, the other three elemental balls were having a "discussion of utmost importance(™)". The oldest and ostensibly wisest among them, the guardian ball, spoke up first.

"Dude! I have, like, two chickens that got fried in Colorado! Woo!"

Yes, he _is_ the wisest of the three. Sad, huh?

The anger ball, by comparison, was angry. You can all go "duh…" now.

"You suck. It's obvious that the stupid Star Magician likes you better than me! It's not fair! It discrimination, that's what it is!"

Refresh, the youngest of the three, sighed. "Dude, chill."

"Never! Not until I get my equal rights! I have nothing! No family, no food, no home, no games, nothing!"

"Um, we're technically your brothers, we don't eat, the cave is our home, and we have never played games of any sort other than Thunder down there."

"Stop interrupting! As I was saying, I have nothing, except… dammit, where is it? I knew I put it around here somewhere… ah! Here we go!" Somehow Anger managed to hold up a glinting implement in the dark caves, despite the rather pronounced lack of hands or limbs.

For once, Guardian stopped mumbling about his chickens to stare at the shiny ring in front of him. "Anger, how in all sam hill did you manage to get the One Ring?" Refresh, by contrast, merely stared at it.

"My precioussss……" Anger replied, and everywhere, Gollum haters sent up a collective shudder. Refresh suddenly made a grab for it, with which Anger replied by jumping onto a nearby ledge, out of reach for the moment. Not to be deterred, Refresh leapt up after Anger trying to distract him. Guardian rolled in front of the drop off point, attempting to cut off Anger's escape route, and the War of the Ring was on.

From Thunder's vantage point atop the chair, however, it looked more like the Best of the Three Stooges. From what he could see, that is, not much, considering the dust cloud, Refresh had the current advantage. It seemed strange that an orb filled with only healing energies would have the upper hand in such a battle. Guardian had somehow managed to pull out a baseball bat from somewhere and was now engaged in the process of beating the brains out of Anger. Thunder groaned mentally. Anger was beginning to glow. And when Anger glowed, bad things happened. Such as the tiny matter of him self-destructing and sending Refresh and Guardian flying. Refresh he didn't care too much for. He was more concerned with Guardian. Mainly because Guardian had smashed into him and knocked him off his chair. Curses, swears, and various bad words were used in excess.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Thunder rolled along the floor languidly. The past couple of weeks, aside from the Star Magician summoning up another copy of Anger, had been boring. But then again, when you lived had a complete and utter nutcase for a master; you took what you could get. The Star Magician had been hunched around Leviathan's summon tablet recently, for reasons known only to himself. Now, however, he was calling all the balls to another meeting.

"I swear to whatever higher being that is out there, if he's called us back to show another card trick, I'm going to fry him with Shine Plasma." Thunder muttered as he entered the chamber.

As it turned out, the Star Magician hadn't called them back to look at a card trick. If only they'd been so lucky…

"Looklooklook!" The Star Magician cackled, pointing to the summon tablet. Thunder glanced at the summon tablet. It seemed unchanged from the last time he'd seen it. Well, except part of it looked extra worn…

Refresh, always a believer in getting to the point, said it first. "Forgive us for our ignorance, o' great one. But what exactly do you want us to look at?"

The Star Magician cackled with glee as he rubbed his hands together, looking for all the world like the crackpot he was. "I scratched out some of the words on the tablet, and made new ones! I changed that stupid eel's name! Weeheeheeheeheehee!"

Thunder rolled over for a closer look. Yes, the words had been changed somewhat. He couldn't read it, of course, but he suspected his master would tell them Leviathan's new name soon enough.

Beaming with pride, the Star Magician pronounced each syllable carefully and clearly. "His new name…… is Azul."

Silence. Complete, utter silence.

Thunder was the first to break it. " I suggest all of us back out of the room reeeaaaal slowly. And no sudden movements."

The other three balls nodded.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Leviathan, or Azul now, was understandably not pleased when he awoke from his nap and realized what the Star Magician had done to him. His once glorious name had been reduced to something that sounded like a medicine along the same lines as Pepto-Bismol. He punished the Star Magician by dunking him underwater and held him there until he screamed for mercy. Or maybe it had been raucous laughter. Azul couldn't tell. After that, he had whiplashed the Magician through another wall. Then he went to sleep again. When Thunder and the others finally dug him out from the ruin, the Star Magician was still giggling.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Thunder was sick and tired of putting up with the damned Star Magician. Every few days, it was another painfully obvious card trick that a two year old could see through, or a chess game that Thunder had to invariably throw away for fear of getting incinerated. Refresh, Guardian, and Anger and him were constantly plotting ways of killing the Star Magician, but just as about Anger would blow himself up in front of the Star Magician, Guardian would throw up a Guard Aura. "Force of habit." He explained sheepishly.

Thunder perked up as he heard the sound of footsteps along on the cave. Rolling forward, he nearly got stepped on by a boy wearing a yellow scarf. Nice fashion there, Thunder muttered under his breath.

Taking the shortcut back to the summon tablet room, he dropped down in front of his master. "Master! There are humans coming to challenge us for the tablet!" 

The Star Magician, instead of replying, merely stood up, stretched, and glared at the doorway, as if daring the humans to step in now. "Let them come." He snorted, for perhaps the first time in his life sounding cool. This effect was pretty much ruined when he put on a pair of oversized sunglasses and whipped out a shotgun from somewhere in his robe's pockets.

Just then, the humans entered the room. The lead one, the one with the yellow scarf, jerked back in surprise at seeing the Magician dressed like a complete retard. Another human, a dark-eyed one with long brown hair stepped forward, and raised his sword in a symbol of challenge.

"You wanna challenge me? Huh? Huh? HUH?! Well, fear me! Fear me, I say! I guard water and stuff! Diediediediediedie! Kekekekekekekekekekeke!!!" Thus saying, he began firing Star Mines in every direction, causing most of the humans to split up and dive for cover. Even his own balls were forced to roll away to seek shelter from the endless explosions. Thunder, faster than most, had managed to hop onto a recess in the wall, and had a pretty good view of the mayhem.

Thus, he got an excellent view of Azul emerging from the tablet and swallowing the Star Magician whole. After which the sea dragon gave a loud burp.

"Darn thing woke me from my nap." He explained to the nonplussed humans. "I'll come with you if you promise not to be as goddamned noisy as that numbskull."

At this, Thunder and the rest of the balls rolled out from their recesses on the wall.

"Can we, uh, join you too?" Thunder asked the dumbstruck warriors hopefully.


	5. Deadbeard

Deadbeard, his pet Mimic, and stuff

The evening sun washed over the remains of a wrecked ship, it's timbers and crew slowly sinking into the murky waters for eternity. And, not two leagues distant, another ship sailed. Away from the wreck. Away from the death they had helped perpetuate.

For this was the ship of the dread pirate Deadbeard. He and his nautical crew had just completed one of their successful ship raids, and were now sailing away, treasure in tow. Part of which the crew was currently sharing among themselves. They had no idea what it was. It sure as heck wasn't ale, but who cared? It tasted darn good.

"Yo ho! Yo ho! A pirates life fer me!" The atrocious singing that drifted up from the deck belonged to none other than the captain of the ship, Deadbeard the pirate. The crewmembers in the general vicinity were forced to clap their hands over their ears or suffer excruciating pain from his mangling of the term "music". The large pirate, however, had no idea just how bad his singing was. Mainly because whenever someone tried to tell him that, a short, sharp conversation ensued.

A conversation, which, incidentally, generally ended with "No! I beg of you! Not my kidneys! For the love of Mars, stop stabbing my ARRRRGGGHHHhhhhh……" Life was funny that way. And thus, the terror of the seas continued with his flamboyant warbling, unaware that he was about two octaves from causing his first mate to commit suicide.

"Yo ho ho and a bottle of-" Pausing to peruse the drink he held in his hand for a moment, he continued. "Diet coca-cola…" And somewhere, the person who first thought up the words to that turned in his grave.

Meanwhile, his first mate stuffed several earplugs into his, well, ears. Turning to another pirate, he muttered. "The cap'n couldn't possibly be more irritating if he _tried_!"

"Pardon?" The pirate asked. "I can't hear a word you're saying, I've got earplugs stuck in here, y'see."

"Nevermind. Just… nevermind."

"What?"

A sword was drawn and stabbed through someone that night.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Deadbeard sniffed the air as he looked around the place. Yes, this island was a good place to plant all his treasure and keep them until they actually had some use for them. Which was about a couple centuries later, but hey, it was the standard, piratey thing to do. Right? Turning to his first mate, he said, "Gather the men."

"Excuse me a sec." His first mate yanked a pair of earplugs from his ear. "Right. You were saying?"

Deadbeard sighed. "Gather the men."

When they were all assembled, Deadbeard stepped up to a podium that had been mysteriously constructed out of a plot device™. Clearing his throat, he stared down at the sea of faces. Most of them were bored, and obviously wished they could be somewhere else. Oh, well. Sacrifices had to be made.

"Friends, pirates, countrymen," He began. "Lend me your ears!" He didn't get the chance to go any further before an ear was lobbed onto the stage. "Maddox, I am well aware of your gangrene problem, but let's not share it right now, okay? Anyways, we're going, like all typical clichéd group of pirates, to bury our treasures here, so we can go off on another shipping raid and pillage and plunder and WAKE UP!"

The group of pirates that had fallen asleep during the speech quickly jerked awake. Looking around, they noticed a rather pissed-off pirate leader looking at them. Settling back into a comfortable position, he listened to the rest of his (inanely boring) speech

I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say three men had seizures by the time Deadbeard finished talking. Then the men were forced to dig a big hole in the to bury the treasure, despite protests of the expiration date clearly showed that the treasure was to be consumed by the end of the year. But Deadbeard overrode the protests, and so the men dug. And dug. And dug some more. When they dug deep enough that five men drowned while trying to dig deeper, Deadbeard decided it was deep enough. Then they dumped all the treasure inside, and covered the hole back up.

Then Deadbeard stepped back up to the podium. "As per usual clichéd pirating schemes, I will now kill all of you to prevent the secret of the treasure from leaking out. Thanks for your time."

This was, as you may suspect, slightly detrimental in terms of morale for the pirates. Deadbeard raised his hand, prepared to cast Freeze Prism and bring frozen death raining down on the pirates when-

"Holy shit! What's that behind you?!"

"Huh?" Deadbeard turned around. The only thing that met his face was a blank wall. Turning back to the pirates, he was about to chew them out for making him waste his time when he realized that all the pirates had taken this convenient distraction to board the ship and sail away.

Leaving behind one very pissed pirate captain on Crossbones Isle.

"Fine! Leave me here! See if I care! Oh, wait… I DO care. ………………. Dammit."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Approximately three thousand years later…

Dank water dripped from the ceiling, coalescing into a large pool. On it, the wreck of an ancient ship was anchored. And currently, a strange, obtuse creature known to the world at large as a mimic was engaged in swabbing the deck. Suddenly, from the interior of the ship, a voice floated out, clearly annoyed.

"Dude! We're outta Doritoes! I thought you were going to buy some more?"

The mimic sighed, and yelled towards the doorway of the cabin. "Get it your own dang self! I'm not your slave!"

"Do it, or I start singing."

The mimic rolled his eyes. "Two thousand years with a zombie pirate belting out dumb nautical shanties gets you used to the allegorical crap you call singing. Now shut up and let me wipe the deck in peace. Don't you have a Cerberus to annoy or something?"

Deadbeard merely sniffed in contempt before settling down on a creaking plank and pulling out a well-weathered copy of "The Silmarillion." After several minutes of perusing the contents of the book, he threw it down in disgust. "This is ridiculous!" He said. "No one who reads this crap will be able to understand it."

"Yep." The mimic said. "The exact same way that Feanor didn't understand that taking the Silmarils away from Valinor would eventually result in the destruction of life, and thus Melkor was always leading him-"

"Oh, shut up." Deadbeard muttered. "Why I chose to allow you to stay with me I'll never know."

"That was because I beat you in a chess game, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. Now I wish I hadn't." Deadbeard sighed. "How exactly were you able to checkmate me in three moves?"

"You'll never know. Unless you happen to be a Jupiter Adept. Which you aren't." The mimic finished swabbing the deck and sat back, wiping his brow. Or at least tried to. It ain't easy when your arm is shorter than the width of your head. "So… remind me." He started. "Exactly how did you get your name?"

"You have a problem with it?"

"Well, you don't have a beard, for one thing…"

"Oh, shut up."

"Neither are you dead…"

" I said shut up."

"And it's a blatant rip-off of Redbeard the pirate, whose name, apparently, had a purpose. Something about dipping it in the blood of his foes."

The mimic didn't get to continue his speech, for at that moment, a blinding flash of light filled the cavern. When the dazzling glare had faded away, three unfamiliar figures were standing on the stairs that led higher upwards, towards the entrance of the whole cave. After glancing around, the only female of the group sighed.

"Are you sure Cypher knows what he's doing?"

The oldest one of the group shrugged. "I dunno. Was the pill past it's expiry date?"

The younger male glanced around before saying, "Well, the rabbit hole looks pretty deep after all."

A second later, they disappeared again. Deadbeard blinked and tried to forget what he had just seen, for his sanity's sake. Didn't work too well. Dagnabbit.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Deadbeard lay back, staring at the ceiling. Raising his head, he noticed the mimic had been busy with tightening several ropes around the ship. "Why bother?" He asked. "It's an exercise in futility, trying to maintain a single ship for three thousand years."

"Would you rather the ship fell apart and we all took a swim?" The mimic countered rather testily. Finishing with his current task, he walked, or rather, waddled to the bridge. Peering up, he stared. "We've got company." He announced, a tad wearily.

A second later, a young bespectacled boy walked into the room, blinking in the dim light. Deadbeard, taking a moment to observe the kid from the shadows, noticed a faint scar on his forehead. After a few minutes, the boy turned to leave.

And was incinerated by a lightning bolt that flash-fried him in an instant.

"What?" The author asked. " I hate Harry Potter!"

Deadbeard merely shrugged before turning back to his nap.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The mimic leaned by one of the ship's walls, staring at the figure of Deadbeard. He was currently trying to tie up a pile of bricks, and wasn't having too much success at it. "Maybe if you let go of your sword." He suggested.

Deadbeard reacted to this suggestion with the same outrage that was normally reserved for someone discovering that they'd been played the sucker by the main villain for throughout the whole adventure, something that seemed to occur in every single RPG that came out on major consoles to date. After chasing the Mimic around the ship for the better part of an hour, the two of them collapsed, exhausted, on the ship's deck.

Just then, a strange clanging noise was heard. Sitting up, Deadbeard peered cautiously around. The ceiling suddenly shook, and a huge, flaming… _thing_, fell through a gap in it, currently engaged in a life or death battle with a man. On closer inspection, the man was old, and largely clothed in grey. After falling into the water, the two combatants starting stabbing, attacking, and generally beating the shit out of each other.

Then the big demon thing turned and ran up some stairs, while the old grey guy followed, yelling something that seemed vaguely like, "You got my hair wet! I am SO going to kill you, you little piece of-" Then followed a word that Deadbeard had never heard before.

After the two of them had disappeared, Deadbeard still sat there, blinking stupidly. "I need a vacation." He muttered to himself.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"You seem to have tolerance issues. Did you have a troubled childhood?"

"That was about three thousand years ago, dumbkopf. I think I'd have forgotten my childhood by now."

"Then what's with the rag you carry with you to sleep every night?"

"Hey! Don't you go around calling blankie a rag!"

"Blankie?"

"It's MINE! My own! My pre-"

"You finish that line and I'll beat you into a bloody pulp."

"But-"

"Twice."

Deadbeard sat back with a disgruntled sigh. The mimic, however, remained standing, eyes glancing back and forth. "I hear someone coming."

"Impossible." Deadbeard scoffed. "I spent five hundred years creating the trapfest that is Crossbones Isle. To think that any mortal could possibly outwit the multiple puzzles, and to defeat the guardians at the doors, it quite simply-"

"Those were the easiest puzzles in my entire life!" A voice floated down from the stairs.

"Yeah." A second voice replied. "I wonder who'd made such an easy maze."

The mimic raised his eyebrow. "You were saying?"

"Ah, shuddap."

The voices were definitely coming closer now. One of them piped up, sounding slightly harried.

"I think this is a bad idea. We should be searching for She-, um, Saturos and Mernadi. They could be at Venus Lighthouse by now!"

"C'mon, the only reason you want to hurry up is so you can find that God Child girl, right? You've got a crush on her!"

"I do _not_!"

"Sure, and that photo that you stare at every night's just your master Hammet, huh?"

"You've been spying on me?!"

"Hehehehehe…"

Then, four people emerged from the stairs, staring around, weapons at the ready. From Deadbeard's vantage point, he observed a young blond and a tall redhead arguing with each other. The boy with sapphire eyes, ostensibly the leader of the group, was glancing around warily, sword at the ready. Behind him, a female with gentle eyes and tumbling mass of blue hair raised her rod, keeping a vigilant watch.

"Ooh, travelers!" The mimic remarked. "Why don't you introduce yourself?"

"Fine." Stepping to the bridge that connected the ship to the stairs, he raised his sword, perfectly vertical, in front of him. The four humans immediately got into a fighting stance, various weapons brought up, ready to face the new foe that awaited them.

"Avast, me hearties!" Deadbeard roared. He reserved his piratical speech for strangers, and these youngsters definitely counted as such. "Shiver me timbers, and keelhaul me… uh, dammit, what was that line again?" As you might guess, considering he hadn't seen another living thing other than the mimic for three millennia, he was slightly rusty in the piratey speech area.

The leader of the group, the one with the sapphire eyes, lowered his sword, looking a bit confused. "Um… who are you?"

Deadbeard sighed. Man, he sucked as a villain. He couldn't even intimidate teenagers anymore. Dang. "I'm, uh, Deadbeard. And I'm the captain of this ship. What are you landlubbers here for?"

Isaac shrugged. "Dunno. We rode this weird pink sandstorm here. And when we found this place, we decided to go in. Lot's of scary monsters, and stuff."

Deadbeard rolled his eyes. Great. These humans had also killed his exotic animal collection. "Look, if you've got no further business here, would you mind leaving?"

"Actually," The redhead began. "According to this guide I bought in Tolbi, we're supposed to beat you up and get a weird vest thingGAHHHHH!!!" He was interrupted by an icy comet that landed on his head, knocking him out.

"I SAID, would you mind leaving?" Deadbeard asked, none too gently. The leader rolled his eyes.

"Fine. I think Ivan wants us to go back to finding that Sheba, too." Raising his hand, he cast Retreat and disappeared.

Deadbeard walked over to his usual spot on the deck and flopped down. 'Well, that was weird."

"I agree."

"Hey, I'm bored."

"Whoop-dee doo. What do you expect me to do about it?"

"Well, we're still outta Doritoes…"

"Fine, I'll go buy them. But only if you come with me. Deal?"

"Deal. Let's go."

"Oh, and let's grab that new handheld entertainment thingamajiggy too."

"What was it called? The Game Boy Advance?"

"Yeah, that one. And let's grab Megaman Battle Network."

"Yeah, I heard the game rocks."

"You know what would be funny?"

"What?"

"If they made a game of us, and showed stuff happening around Crossbones Isle."

"That's dumb."

"Yeah, guess it wasn't exactly a bright idea…"

And the two… living things left the cavern, secretly wondering about what life had in store for them.

Probably something involving hockey sticks and lots of paint.

Whatever.


	6. Poseidon

Poseidon, the Trident of Ankohl, and stuff.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

_Rrrring! Rrrrring_

The shrill ringing of a telephone pierced the watery silence just outsode of the grand coty of Lemuria. Sighing, a hulking half-man, half- fish lumbered over to the phone, picking it up with a snarl on his face.

"Hello, Poseidon's Fish Market, open till midnight."

A significant pause.

"Midnight. dumbass."

Another pause.

"Yes, I said you were a dumbass. You have a problem with that? Huh? Huh? You wanna know how many boneheads have been asking me what time my store closes? DO YOU?! NO?! Then keep your mouth shut, you whiny scum! And would you like the trout or the bass? Hello? Hello?"

Sighing, Poseidon hung up the phone, before swimming over to his diary. Making a mental note to eat another five Lemurians for dinner later, he began writing in his diary.

'Dear Diary,

It has been another uneventful day. Much like any other, although I did have fun ripping apart a submarine earlier this morning for laughs. I cannot remember it's name, but it was the Naughty. something. I think it was "Naughty Lust." Dumb name, anyhow. Well, what can I say? Nothing ever happens in this lousy place, and I'm starting to wonder if it's worth staying here. It's fun torturing the Lemurians and all, but they don't seem to want to play with me anymore. I wonder why? I just rip out their limbs one by one before popping their bodies into my mouth and chewing them. Nothing harmful at all. Except to them, I suppose. But who cares about others? I'm the only good thing in this desolate, barren place. Even the fish is stringy. But-"

He was cut off as an anchor was dropped squarely on his head, making a lovely resounding _clang!_ Rubbing his slightly sore temple, he looked up, thinking he could hear the distant sound of a fight going on. Shrugging, he began swimming to the surface.

As he broke through the surface of the water, he saw two huge ships locked in combat with each other. This was a rare thing, especially in these choppy waters. What was weirder, however, was that one of the ships appeared to be firing various pieces of cutlery at the other. Blinking, Poseidon decided that this had absolutely nothing to do with him, and swam back into the ocean floor.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"So, you thought you could escape me?! Me, lord of the ocean, the scourge of the seas? You have led me on a merry chase, that is true, but today, ah, today! You shall face my true might, brought down by the heavens themselves! Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!"

The starfish gave no response. Poseidon grumbled to himself as he settled back onto his couch. Danged denizens of the ocean, they gave him no respect nowadays. Ah, well. What was a demigod supposed to do nowadays? Shrugging, he flicked off the light, and went to sleep.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

His sleep was somewhat interrupted by a bunch of skeletons that walked all over him in an attack on a ship anchored nearby. Other than that, there was nothing too eventful. Until morning, that is. He had been awakened by the sound of a ship passing overhead.

Grumbling to himself, Poseidon once again swam to the surface, prepared to chew out whoever it was that was commandeering the ship. And maybe splatter their brains over the deck. That was fun to do.

The first thing he saw on the huge ship, however, was a pair of people standing on the bow. One man and woman.

"Jack, I'm flying! I'm fly-"

_Splutch!_

Poseidon smirked to himself as the aim from his trident proved true, spearing both the guy and and the girl in one clean throw. Grinning with satisfaction, he watched the trident fly in a long, slow arc before landing back in the water with a loud splash. After swimming down to retrieve it, he noted that the ship was still making a lot of sound.

Growling to himself, he cast Glacier several times to create a huge iceberg, and pushed it in the general direction of the ship. A few minutes later, he was rewarded with a loud _screech!_

Swimming back to his house, Poseidon settled back into bed for a long, long nap.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It was around July when it happened. He had just been minding his own business, you know, the usual stuff, like spearing five Lemurians with a single thrust of his weapon, when _they_ showed up.

In teams. They always came in teams. And they always claimed they were the good guys. Saving the world. Hah! They were the evil ones. The ones that killed the good guy like him, slowly bleeding him of life. Once all the defenders of freedom like him were dead, then! Ah, then they would make their strike, and cover all the world in shadow. He had to stop it now.

Lifting his trident, Poseidon aimed it at them. With a snarl, he indicated that they should leave. They didn't comply. With a mental shrug, Poseidon decided to make the situation a lot more clear to them.

"I am NOT paying taxes again this year!"

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Another typical day in the ocean. Poseidon was bored. What he needed was a good punch-up. A fight. The Lemurians were pathetic. It would be a miracle if one of them got off a Frost spell before he impaled them. Not that it would have done much good against his Force Field anyway. Floating languidly to the surface, he glanced around bored. Yup, absolutely nothing around h-

Wait, was that a ship? Yes, it was! With four people on it. All of them looking decently strong. Yes, this might be fun. Swimming over, he splashed out of the ocean with a roar, raising his trident over his head. 

However, before he could attack, a young blonde girl had already blasted him with a barrage of lightning. Others might have flinched under the pain, but the Force Field around Poseidon dissipated the attack before it could do any harm.

"Fool!" He laughed. "You cannot hope to challenge me!"

"No?" A dark-haired boy smirked.

"You dare mock me?" Poseidon growled. Raising his trident, he stabbed it straight at the boy, vaguely aware of the boy raising some other weapon, pointing it at him, and-

A blast of purple light, and the force field around Poseidon disappeared, among with a jolt of pain, that ran up his shoulder. His eyes widened as he stared at the shining weapon in the boy's hand. It couldn't be, it just couldn't.

"That trident was _broken_!" He cried.

The boy's eyes narrowed as another blast flew from it into Poseidon's body, causing him to roar in pain. "It has been remade."

"But-" The Sea God's face contorted into a snarl as he mentally reviewed his current status. "I destroyed it! I took it to the Cracks of Mt. Aleph, the _one_ place where it could be destroyed! I cast it into the fire! It cannot still exist!"

A red-haired girl stepped forward, flinging a fireball at him. With the Force Field gone, the attacks now hurt. A lot. "Next time you destroy something, try not to choose things that can be easily reforged by some old coot standing around a hole."

The Sea God glanced around worriedly as the four warriors surrounded him. All of them beginning to glow with psynegetical attacks of their respective elements. And one thought entered his mind.

Shit.


End file.
